Actress Laverne Cox has been making her rounds on the talk show circuit in recent weeks to promote her show Clean Slate (streaming on Prime Video). Along the way (while making big fashion statements) she’s been talking about the Trump government’s attacks on trans rights and giving advice for resistance. She says looking to community and to history can get the trans community through this difficult time.
“Understand that we come from a legacy of ancestors and transistors who’ve been criminalized before and found a way to get access to gender-affirming care,” she said on The View. “Maybe not from a doctor, but we did it, we’ve been doing it, and we will always do it no matter what. And we did it in community, we did it sharing resources and community aid—so look to community right now, look to people in your lives offline.”
“I refuse to be a victim and we must not be victimized and there’s such a wonderful legacy that we have to look to—as trans people, as people of color—of resilience and resistance even when the government wants to erase people from public life,” she continued. “This is what they’ve said. I’ve read Project 2025, that’s what they’re doing. Even in the face of that, they can’t erase us. Girl, I’m not going anywhere.”
She reiterated that community is important in this moment when appearing on the Kelly Clarkson Show with Dr. Carla Smith, CEO of The Center: “When the state is so vehemently, overtly against you, community feels like the thing that we really have to lean into.”
She brought up history again on CBS Mornings: “We’re going backwar7ds in so many ways, but what I like to remind people of is that this is not the first time trans identity has been criminalized in this country and we have found a way to survive, sometimes even thrive, and it was through community, it was through mutual aid, it was through finding ways to find joy in the catastrophic.”